Sales incentive programs are the perfect fit for most business goals, but they require your customer base to engage with them. Usually, this can be done through motivational and aspirational rewards such as travel incentive experiences, but you can also elevate engagement through setting a short-term sales promotion!
This blog will break down some of the most popular short-term promotion options for an existing sales incentive program and explain how they can re-energise program engagement to drive incremental sales growth and increase your organisation’s share of the wallet.
Sales Promotion #1: Double Points Promotions
The first promotion option is a classic for a reason—double points promotions let your customers see twice the value of doing business with your brand. These promotions can be tied to specific product ranges, allowing you to encourage sales of high-margin or newly launched products and see an influx of movement in lines that may otherwise fail to connect in this manner.
Any business can find key benefits in running a double points promotion, including an increase in product visibility and a greater sense of urgency among customers, who will likely want to engage quickly to gain the most value for their purchases.
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Sales Promotion #2: Leaderboard Promotions
Sales incentive programs are a fantastic way to drive a healthy sense of competition in your customers. In B2B markets, this works fantastically with customer bases comprising sales staff notorious for wanting to be the best, so capture their attention with a leaderboard promotion!
Leaderboard promotions encourage spending through a sense of competitiveness, considering that their performance will be showcased to all participants in your program. By offering large, aspirational rewards (think F1 tickets, high-end electronics or B2B travel experiences), you can have your participants fight for the top spots – which can only be achieved by doing business with your brand.
These promotions are great for increasing motivation to act within the program. They push your participants to go beyond their typical performance in their desire to win, and your business comes out on the winner’s podium!
Sales Promotion #3: Reward Bundles for Top Performers
It’s not always expected to see merchandise rewards in a sales incentive program. These are usually found in customer loyalty programs, where customers are rewarded for their continued purchasing behaviour by cashing in their points for the goods they want. That’s where reward bundles come in!
By creating reward bundles for top performers, you can push that sense of competition to drive motivation alongside your sales growth. Using packages of relevant items (i.e., an “outdoors” pack with a mountain bike, helmet, backpack and water bottle), your participants can fully understand what doing business with your brand can provide them.
Reward bundles can also tap into a sense of recognition and lifestyle realisation that works similarly to travel incentive packages, where the trophy value of being a winner can incentivise them to become brand advocates, telling everyone what they achieved through purchasing from your brand.
Sales Promotion #4: “Black Friday”-Style Promotions
“Black Friday” has become a global term despite originating in the United States, meaning everyone should understand where this next short-term promotion is going.
Using a one-day or short-term event promoting significant discounts and exclusive rewards customised to your brand’s identity, you can create a sense of hype and capitalise on seasonal shopping behaviours, capturing the B2C drive that can feel sorely lacking in B2B markets.
These promotions are great for driving urgency and bringing attention and engagement back to your program while bringing broader retail trends to B2B markets—with high-impact results!
Sales Promotion #5: Wish Lists
We all remember the excitement of writing a letter to Santa as kids, putting down the items that we personally wanted most. The wait for Christmas might have felt long, but it gave us a reason to wait—and it gave our parents an understanding of how to personalise the holiday!
A “wish list” promotion aims to capture that sense of anticipation and motivation. Your program can have participants create wish lists of their desired rewards, which can be set to specific goals for them to achieve and redeem.
By personalising the incentive experience and giving your customers exactly what they want, you can ensure engagement remains after the initial buzz wears off while also setting specific sales or volume targets to ensure that your business gains the most value out of the transactions.
Creating aspirational goals guarantees long-term engagement with your brand. It also motivates your participants to keep working to hit their sales targets—a win-win!
Sales Promotion #6: Prepaid Gift Cards
Prepaid gift cards share the sense of flexibility in the previous example. They can be offered as rewards in your program while also catering to economic concerns that your customers may experience through regular bills, mortgages, or just the increased cost of living that many of us are feeling.
There have been concerns around the power of gift cards offered in incentive programs, where cash can decrease engagement as the funds become expected as part of the transaction. However, with branded reloadable gift cards, you can ensure that the power of doing business with your organisation is at the forefront of every transaction earned through the program.
Offering prepaid gift cards in your sales incentive program can increase the emotional connection with your brand while ensuring that your program can appeal to a broader audience than usual.
With the holiday season fast approaching, the timeliness of a seasonal or end-of-year promotion feels appropriate to mention. By tapping into the feeling of the season, you can ensure that your aspirational rewards resonate with your participants while ensuring that your program stays front of mind during the busy season.
The beauty of these promotions is that the rewards that participants earn during these periods can be shared with family and friends, reducing potential costs for presents. You can also let your customers fully connect with their earned rewards during the downtime, allowing the emotional power of your brand to truly sink in outside of work hours.
All of these promotions return to the fact that a sales incentive program can be kept dynamic and engaging, ensuring that your brand remains front-of-mind for all customers in the slower sections of the program.
By using some of these promotions, you can maintain excitement and drive the results you started the program for. This allows your business to sit comfortably knowing that your customers are motivated and working hard to achieve your goals.